


Ready, Set, Reset

by DaddySaysBow



Series: Aftermath of Catastrophe [2]
Category: Hazbin Hotel (Web Series)
Genre: Blood, Fluff and Angst, M/M, Sinners have a shit time sometimes, Temporary Character Death, not apologizing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-17
Updated: 2020-05-17
Packaged: 2021-03-03 03:01:25
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,394
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24227779
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DaddySaysBow/pseuds/DaddySaysBow
Summary: Baby has a bad day and it sucks for us both. If half of us could handle shit like Alastor does we'd all be super heros.
Relationships: Alastor/Valentino (Hazbin Hotel)
Series: Aftermath of Catastrophe [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1748773
Comments: 9
Kudos: 48





	Ready, Set, Reset

**Author's Note:**

> Baby, dont read this one either, kay?
> 
> Y'all are welcome to enjoy and see my self therapy getting this shit outa my head. It ain't pretty and I dont care.

Hell might be an absolute bitch some of the time, which I guess is warranted, but it comes with a few perks. Namely regeneration and anarchy. In my not so humble opinion I think they make life fun.

Three weeks after the wreck that was absolutely the fuck all of catastrophes for my daily life and Alastor is at least up on a cane and trying to bumble through life like a man again. Not _his_ cane, of course. 'You don't abuse a microphone like that'. But he took one of mine, cut it in half, and looks like a proper old fuck wandering around with the bolts and pins holding him together. 

I'm just glad it calmed him down a bit. We both really fucking needed that. 

But up until today there was still a routine. He'd sleep under medication all night, wake up with me to make breakfast and chatter about whatever got fixed in his head. Normally that just means singing at the top of his lungs which can be heaven or hell depending what the tune of the day is but if he's smiling I'm happy. Then I would go work while he reads or sketches or disassembles something in my rooms or office or fuck, he took apart some stage lights once just to play with the bulbs and that was a mess. 

Don't let him around your tools, kids, he has no idea how to put shit back together most of the time. I _needed_ those.

But he entertains himself and I'm back on track with my editing shoots and normally he has made something spicy and wonderful for dinner I don't question because I'm pretty sure I'm missing a few staff members. I'm definitely missing the front carpet to my study, and then we bitch or bathe and go to bed. 

I even got laid twice this week. By Alastor. Go me!

It's exactly the same sort of deal I expect when I get off my elevator tonight and find the place empty. Dead quiet - which if you know Alastor is not a good sign - and full of that weird cold feeling you get when no one's been in a place for a few hours. 

It fucking terrifies me. 

He should _not_ be out, and he should _not_ be missing and my fucking heart stops because his phone is on the damn counter and I dont know _where my broken husband is!_

Grabbing the damn thing in reflex I know I look murderous pacing through my rooms and looking for clues to where he's gone, upending small projects and comforts in a stupid idea maybe the squirrelly bastard is just hiding and getting under my skin. What I find makes me feel like an ass though. A grade A, insensitive prick of the finest caliber of bad mates. 

Wherever he is, he isn't dressed for public because I'm pulling his pocket book from his abandoned coat and looking at his schedule and it's _today_ and I forgot. I even check my phone to confirm the date and now I _know_ where he is. 

It's his death day and I _forgot_. Call me a bastard, now, please because I always forget this damn day until the last fucking minute. I hate it that much.

Grabbing him a bottle of that red laced rum and a blanket I go and find him exactly where I expect him now, curled up and miserable in my safe room in the only chair that doesn't swallow his thin frame.

He looks like he's been crying, and I won't call him on it because then I have to admit I've been staring at porn cunts all afternoon while he mourned himself.

"Babe? You okay?" I know he isn't and he knows he isn't but he still perks up and grins so wide I can pretend not to see the dark circles under his eyes. 

"Perfectly fine! Just keeping out of the way while I wander in thought. How was work…" The question dies, small talk a suffrage he cannot muster right now and I just shrug and drape the furry blanket around him before bundling him bodily into my lap. 

Immediately his claws are picking at it, shredding and plucking the fur from hide in something he's told me is tactile pleasure but it's damn destructive. Passing him the bottle I note he downs a solid inch in one pull and that's more answer than not for how shitty he feels.

"Sorry I got distracted. How bad is it?" Two arms around his waist, another in his hair and I still pull his chin up to meet his eyes because he wilts with his own shrug. Static flickers across red, rattled and vibrating and I watch him fight breaking apart like the behemoth of control he is. 

"Loud. Very, very loud. I can't...I just want to listen to music dear. _Please_." His usually smooth tone is broken in static, choppy and small. Carrying him because he makes no move to slide from my lap I go turn on an old record player to a soft blues vinyl I keep and settle back down to watch him shake. 

"Thank you." 

I hate when he sounds defeated. This last month has given me a lifetime of that sad lilting voice.

Bundle of misery in my lap and nothing else to do but wait I pull out the smart tech he abandoned and watch him blink. "Forgot this. Don't worry, they can't track in here." Even then he still takes it slowly, sighing like a popping engine on bad fuel and giving me a shrewd side eye.

"Thought you hated my new friends." 

"Just hate sharing ya, Baby. But you need it and I got you _here_ to myself. Let em know you're fine." It's taken a week of prying but he finally admitted he'd made friends, started writing and enjoying the internet, even found a new hobby. Hasn't told me what it is yet but I can wait. 

Angling away from me, ever secretive, his head is on my chest and I can slip one hand down under the covers to card his tail between my fingers while I pet his ears and pretend it's just another evening by the t.v. 

Whatever he's doing, Twitter if I had to guess by the colors I see, has him chuckling quietly and still smiling. Yeah, it's sappy but I'm glad to feel those small shakes of humor even if I'm pissy I can't compete with a bunch of damn no name humans. Not lately but at least _I_ get to hold him and touch him and know he is mine. Just another random name to all those living bitches.

I'm half dozing in my own cuddly headspace some hour or so later when the dissonance starts. Alastor is still typing, lower lip caught in his teeth and focused, but the static around him rises in a warble over the fading music of the last record song. Took me years to learn his tells but _that_ is always a sign of truth. The noise.

Listening to it turn dusty and dim, I roll the blanket off his shoulders to start on his buttons while he assists me distractedly with rolling shoulders and absent motions. For once I don't mind his new addiction, saving his shirt from himself and glad he got his mind off of it - until he can't. 

When he freezes up I take the phone too, putting it aside, and wrapping all my arms around him even before the scent of blood has a chance to strike me. It's always a morbid wonder to watch his scars peel open, thin cracks blooming until thick lines of blood start to paint him black, then red. 

Trembling and spitting verbal static my poor love can't unlock his limbs, small seizures hitting him in measured time and building from annoyance to manically horrifying quickly. All I can do is bury his face in my chest, lifting my knees to tug him into my embrace, and ignore the weeping death mark on his face that smears me as he fights his demons. 

Some of them died quick. Vox did. 

Alastor did _not_.

I've never asked what tore him up, what dragged out his pain, because just watching him relive it is enough to make me ache. Instead I wait for the music. The awful, discordant melody his mind will drag from the ether of his thoughts when he tries to subdue his own unconscious terror. 

It's never anything I expect or enjoy, hearing his moments of mourning.

《 _A stranger's dead, the night is red  
His heart is cold, his lungs are blown  
The strangers last breath, a quiet death  
His silence is stronger than the voice he had._》

Oh sweet Lucifer's tits that has my chest caving for him. I don't have the best memory for music but it's not one I've heard and it certainly isn't something I'd expect out of Alastor but it matches the quaking man in my arms too well. It breaks my heart just a bit more. 

Over and over it plays like a mantra, breaking down into the background of shrieks and metal, of savage growls and the high notes of pained static he makes between seizures. My hands are everywhere and I'm crying but it doesn't matter because he is _dying_ and I _hate_ it everytime. 

Even knowing it's coming I feel a sob like a blade in my chest when he seizes violently and goes still. Complete silence descending without static or heartbeat or motion. I hate this. I hate it hate it _hate it_ every year.

I timed it once just for something to do with myself and I count the seconds now in that deep fear that maybe he won't wake up. That this year is the year that breaks all rules and he will fall to ash in my lap and not turn back on like he promises me he will. I don't _care_ if every sinner does this and I don't _care_ if it's normal. This is _my love_ and my life and my everything laying as a corpse in my arms and it fucking ruins me.

When I get to 'one' I feel him twitch and I can breath again. We both take shuddering inhales and the static that pours from his throat is thick and wrong with how disorienting it must be but it's alive and building in strength. He doesn't fight the way I cling to him, pawing and checking every inch and wiping blood from skin that was broken only minutes ago but has sealed back to dark pearlescent lines on his grey skin. 

Alastor barely moves at all, just a panting doll in my arms. So much rushing back and twisting in his core. He's told me before its chaos in his head and I believe him!

He's also told me how to care for him when he can't find himself. Humming the same tune he wove in his death I summon upon long years of word play and make my own. I _won't_ sing that sad dirge for him. 

He picks it up too, a faint instrumental building as his hands seek my coat and bury in fur. Holding onto reality while I sing to him. 

"My lover's dead, his eyes are red  
My heart is sold, his smile's gold,  
My husband's last breath, my final rest  
Your love is the heaven I have never had."

I have never thought I was made for singing, my low rumble a smooth note for bedrooms and vices but not song. Alastor adores it. He lights up when I sing, his ears twitch when they so often are perfectly still, and now he melts against me with a soft mewling sound of pleasure. 

Twice I sing until he straightens and grabs my jaw for a kiss that tastes like blood and the toxic _him_ I am addicted to. I grip his ass and he tangles arms around my neck and there is nothing but a physical need for flesh and touch and comfort in our grinding, sweet motions. I couldn't get it up if I tried after ensuring that but _this_ is enough. 

My mate, my husband is _fine_ and my universe will go on. 

"Thank you." I pour it into his lips and his smile is too fucking bright. Over the back of the chair I feel cold black arms circle me too and I could cry again in relief.

"Your song was beautiful." Backing away from emotion like he does and giving my face a short pat. 

" _You're_ beautiful." My automatic answer and he snorts at me, sliding from my lap and snapping the mess of blood and tears off his skin. Pulling back on his shirt and squinting when his shadow takes his abandoned place on me with a saucy wink. 

Alastor looks fondly exasperated by how I cuddle his Shade side but I'm beyond relieved to see his other half and _know_ that this forced reset has put him to rights. Too many fits of adrenaline laced, shaking fear has hit me in the middle of the night these last weeks without seeing his strength recover. 

He must not mind because black tugs me too, seeking to be held and adored and of course I obey. I fucking love him too much not to.

"When you're quite through I wouldn't mind a late dinner." One hand on his hip and toe tapping Alastor can feign impatience but his smile is too soft. When I ruffle his shadow's ears his smile twitches and I give in.

"I'll call in take out. Want Le'Precivere?" Carrying the shade covers my need to hold my husband, instead following him back towards my rooms while he drinks from his rum. 

"No. Call that burger place, the one with the hounds." Already back in his phone, gesturing at me with the bottle.

"You hate their food, babe." I point out but his sharp grin answers before he does. 

"But you don't! How convenient my dinner will serve yours~" It has us both in laughing fits until we collapse on my couch to wait and I know all will be alright now. Truly, perfectly, alright again.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for whoever likes this shit or at least dont hate it.  
> I made that Twitter I said I would and funny shit is people I like block me. I'm a treat, huh? Anyway, stalk me if ya like, same name.  
> Come tell me what an ass I am, I deserve it.


End file.
